Bardock's First Christmas
by Thireven
Summary: There's nothing like spending time with family during Christmas. One-Shot.


A sequel to "A Meeting Long Awaited For" and "Surprise".

This is just a fun little story I wrote for the sake of Bardock being cute.

Merry Christmas!

* * *

"Dad, wake up!"

Bardock's eyes snapped open.

He sat up and already had his legs over the side of the bed when the sight of his son's expression made him stop. Still half asleep, he stared at Kakarot with a raised eyebrow. The sudden awakening had him assuming that there was an emergency, yet his son was far from alarmed. In fact, the man looked excited; there was a wide grin on his face and he was bouncing slightly.

What could possibly be so important that Kakarot felt the need to wake Bardock up by shouting?

"What do you want?"

"Let's go train."

"Right now?" Bardock asked as he dragged his hand down his face. "What time is it?"

"Morning."

Frowning, Bardock looked out the window. Normally he would agree to a training session, but it was still dark outside and he wanted to go back to sleep.

"Please?"

 _He's making that face again,_ Bardock thought with a sigh as he watched Kakarot stick his bottom lip out. No doubt he would pout and pester Bardock until he got what he wanted. Better to just agree to it rather than argue.

"Fine."

"Woo-hoo!" Kakarot exclaimed, throwing up his hands. "Hurry up and get dressed so we can go!"

Bardock shooed his son out of the room to do just that. There had to be some other reason that Kakarot was so excited besides a regular training session. If anything, the man was most likely up to something. That made Bardock groan. He wasn't sure he could handle any of Kakarot's usual antics with how tired he was. The only thing he could do was try to get through the day and hope for the best.

When he was done, the two flew out to a clearing in the woods. Of the places to go, Bardock wondered why his son had chosen the woods, but shrugged it off.

They trained for quite a while until they both decided to take a break. Yawning, Bardock stretched his arms up over his head. Knowing Kakarot, there would be at least one more round before they headed home, so Bardock was going to stretch his muscles out before they started again.

That _was_ the plan until something cold hit him in the face.

He blinked and stared at Kakarot, who stared at him with an innocent smile. In one of his hands was a snowball.

Scowling, Bardock bent over to pick up a handful of snow. Once he was sure it was packed tightly together, he moved his arm back and then threw it. Kakarot let out a yelp when it hit him, though he began to laugh while he brushed the snow from his face.

Soon they were in a full-blown snowball fight.

Bardock was unsure why he was enjoying as much as he was. There they were, two full grown men, chucking snow at each other. Kakarot was practically giggling and even Bardock himself couldn't help himself from laughing.

He did have to admit to himself that it was rather fun.

By the time they were done, the sun was finally up. Both of them had to shake quite a bit of the snow off of themselves.

"Don't you dare tell _anyone_ about that," Bardock warned.

Kakarot grinned. "I promise I won't." He put his hand on his stomach when it rumbled. "Guess we better go get something to eat. Who knew a snowball fight could make me so hungry?"

"Anything could make you hungry," Bardock replied with a snort as he jumped into the air.

"Hey!" Kakarot exclaimed, following Bardock. "That's not true."

"Really?"

"Okay, maybe it's a little bit true."

"You get hungry even when you're sitting around."

"I do _not_."

Instead of continuing the conversation, Bardock let out a soft chuckle. He was the first to reach the house and swung the door open, ready to eat.

He was immediately greeted by a collective shout of, "Merry Christmas!"

The only thing that came out of his mouth was, "Huh?"

Bardock stared at the group until he felt a set of hands shove him towards a pile of boxes set aside from the others. Looking over his shoulder revealed the culprit to be Kakarot, who was grinning from ear to ear. It wasn't until they were right in front of the boxes that Kakarot stopped pushing him.

"What's going on?"

"Since this is your first Christmas with us, we wanted it to be a surprise!" Kakarot declared. "So everyone got ready while we were out training."

"I _knew_ you were up to something."

"Guilty as charged!" The man motioned to the boxes eagerly. "Go on, open them!"

Though he was unsure about the situation, Bardock sat down and began opening the presents. Aside from a small pile of new clothes, there was a box with new armor inside of it and another with training weights. Just as he began to stand up, Goten ran forward with a much smaller present in his hands. Bardock nodded and took it from him, wondering what the small object could possibly be.

It was a picture.

The day it had been taken just happened to be the first day Bardock had been introduced to Videl and her father. Sometime after a rather spontaneous dinner, Bardock had been convinced to take part in a picture. On one side was Ox-King, Chi-Chi, and Kakarot. On the other side was Gohan, Videl, and Hercule. Somehow Bardock had ended up in the middle, with Kakarot's arm wrapped around his shoulders and Goten standing in front of him. Everyone else was smiling, but there was a noticeable scowl on Bardock's face.

What caught his attention was the frame. At the bottom, the word "family" was carved into it.

"So, what do you think? Do you like it?" Goten asked.

Bardock stared down at the picture before looking up at the group of gathered people with a small smile. While he wasn't one to really enjoy cheesy things, he appreciated all the effort they put into making his first Christmas a good one.

Having a family as welcoming as Kakarot's was nice, even though they drove him crazy on more than one occasion.

"Yes, I do."


End file.
